"But Father," the little girl began, following her father down the grand staircase of their mansion home, her lips trembling. "This is our home. Our lives are here. Mama is here."

"Aya, please." Her father paused and looked down at her sternly. "We can't live in the past anymore. I can't stay here. There are too many memories, and my heart cannot bear it any longer. I've been given a new opportunity. A new chance. And we're going to take this chance, Aya. We're going to start fresh, and make something new and better out of our lives."

Aya opened her mouth to protest, but was silenced by a look from her father. "Here," he handed her a plastic card. "This is who you are now." Aya looked down at the card. There was her picture, her own dark eyes staring back up at her. She looked at the name next to the picture. "You changed our name?"

"At least I let you keep your first name. We're the Steinmans now. J.S. and Aya Steinman. Your father's going to be a doctor, Aya. I'm going to make people beautiful."

Aya frowned, "Don't doctors cure people?"

"That's what I do, Aya. I'm going to make them…perfect. Perfect in every way. Leave your things behind. Where we're going, we'll have everything we could ever want or need."

"Didn't you say it was under the sea, though? How is that even possible?"

"No more questions now, Aya. Come." Her father briskly stepped out the door and into the garden without looking back. Aya, however, paused. "Goodbye house. Goodbye toys. Goodbye…Mama." She stepped out into the light, wondering if she would ever see the sun again.

Rapture. Aya rolled the name around on her tongue, tasting the name of her new home. She wasn't sure if she liked the name yet. She knew for sure she didn't like being a Steinman, though. Aya glanced over to her father. He stared straight ahead, looking into the blue-blackness that surrounded the little pod they were standing in.

A bathysphere, Aya reminded herself.

It was no ordinary bathysphere that the Steinmans were carried to their new home in. Andrew Ryan, the leader of the city of Rapture, had sent his personal bathysphere to deliver the Steinmans straight to him, bypassing all the rest of the traffic of bathyspheres floating into the city.

Who was Andrew Ryan anyway? Aya pressed her nose against the glass. She could see lights in the distance. And slowly at first, but then all at once, the lights were getting brighter and brighter. Their bathysphere rose over a cliff wall, and there it was.

Rapture illuminated the water around it, radiating grandeur with its tall buildings and neon lights. Soon, the bathysphere was weaving between those buildings, taking its own previously programmed path. Aya pressed her face harder into the glass, her jaw dropping. What was this place? How was this even possible?

Yet deep in the pit of her stomach, something lurked. And somewhere, deep in that pit, there was a feeling that something wasn't right. Aya clutched her stomach. Suddenly it was hurting. Maybe it was the seasickness, maybe it was the anxiety she felt leaving home, but one moment she was standing upright, and the next, she had vomited breakfast into the thick carpet of the bathysphere.

"Aya!" The new Dr. Steinman snapped. "What have you done!"

"I..I'm so, so sorry, father." Aya's voice shook. "I didn't mean…"

"It doesn't matter what you meant or didn't mean to do!" Her father grabbed his daughter by the shoulders and shook her slightly. "How are we going start well if you make a mess right away?" Aya didn't answer. She was shaking so hard, she could barely lift her chin to meet her father's eyes. And in those eyes, she saw something. It was what she saw when she saw her mother for the last time. It was what she saw when her father had given her a new doll for her birthday. Aya hated that look, but she didn't know what it was. If she didn't know better, she would say it was madness.

Dr. Steinman suddenly seemed to come to his senses, his eyes softened, and he pulled his daughter into a warm embrace. "I'm sorry, Aya. I'm just tense, that's all. I start my new job today, somewhere completely new. You're nervous too, aren't you?" Aya nodded.

"Tell you what, Aya." Dr Steinman's face broke into a grin. "You go exploring for a few hours, then we'll meet back at the house for dinner. Mr. Ryan handpicked a personal chef just for us! I bet he knows all your favorite recipes!" Aya gave him a weak smile. She would be alone for a while, but after this episode with her father, she didn't think she would mind.

As the bathysphere left them in front of the huge house they were to live in, and her father turned away to leave for work, Aya stood very still. She watched the bathysphere make its way back to, she presumed, Mr. Ryan, who would undoubtedly get a nasty surprise. She worried about her father. Would he get in trouble for what she had done? Perhaps, while she was left on her own, she could get him a gift to cheer him up, especially if things didn't go over too well with Mr. Ryan and the job.

After all, time was hers until dinner, and if she didn't stray too far, she could make it back in time to eat.

For now, though, all of Rapture was hers to explore.